The weird weather continues in New Orleans. I’ve compared it to a yo-yo or a rollercoaster in the past. This week’s analogy is a pendulum only with fog. Fog is the only constant. January skies are on the gloomy side: gray, overcast, and depressing. If only it were overcast in August when it’s blazing hot. So it goes.
We’re in throes of preparing for Krewe du Vieux. It’s early this year: February 8th, a mere 3 weeks away. This strikes me as a good time to link to last year’s Bayou Brief piece, Confessions Of A Krewe du Vieux Member.
This week’s theme song was written by Dave Wakeling for the Beat’s 1982 album, Special Beat Service. It, in fact, has a beat and you can dance to it. Uh oh, I’ve morphed into Dick Clark in my dotage. What’s next? A gig hosting a game show?
We have two versions of Save It For Later for your listening pleasure. The original studio version by the English Beat (the Beat to me) and a live version by Pete Townshend.
Before jumping to the break, another song with save in the title:
All that saving made me feel like Mariano Rivera. OMG, a Yankee reference. I’m going to hell but on the way, let’s jump to the break.
I had an epiphany this morning and realized it’s Twelfth Night. Just kidding. I knew that already. Saints fans are drowning their sorrows with King Cake after yesterday’s loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Oh well, what the hell can ya do? Not a damn thing.
In addition to kicking off the Carnival season, Twelfth Night is also Paul Drake’s Gotcha Day. We adopted the mischievous bugger in 2018. Here’s PD’s adoption day picture with Dr. A:
He’s a lucky cat and I’m a lucky man.
Are you ready for some lagniappe lagniappe catblogging? Dennie the Den of Muses Cat has retired from her duties. She’s living at home with her human. Here’s a blast from the past of Dennie with the Spank flag:
Carnival and Paul Drake’s gotcha day loom. We adopted the dear boy on Twelfth Night in 2018. I guess that means we must consume King Cake on Monday. Poor us.
I said all I have to say about the latest mess in Mesopotamia yesterday. Suffice it to say that I don’t think it’s an Archduke Ferdinand moment but it’s some serious shit,
This week’s theme song was written in 1976 by Nick Lowe for his kinda sorta solo album Jesus Of Cool, which was released in America as Pure Pop For Now People. I said kinda sorta solo album because it featured Nick’s band Rockpile on all the tracks. More about them later.
We have two versions of So It Goes for your listening pleasure: the original studio recording and a live medley with Heart In The City.
Both Nick Lowe and I picked up the phrase “so it goes” from Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.
Before jumping to the break another Rockpile tune. This time the guys are backing up Nick’s then wife Carlene Carter:
Now that we’ve got all that crying out of our systems, let’s dry our eyes and jump to the break.
I mentioned a top-secret party in an undisclosed location last Saturday. Now that it’s over, I can unbutton my lip: it was Krewe du Vieux’s annual fundraiser, the Brew Dieux. It raises money for both the mother krewe and for sub-krewes like Spank, We sold food and booze and had our annual sideshow game: the dirty weiner drop.
We made just south of $100 on this gross-n-grotty game. Winners received a trip to the Spank world of crap to win a crappy gift. I am not making this up.
I spent a lot of time this week researching and writing a piece about the New Orleans newspaper war for the Bayou Brief. It will be dropping in the next few days. That’s why I’m keeping this introduction, well, brief.
This week’s theme song continues the patriotic theme of the week. The left should never have let the right hijack patriotism in the Sixties, which was when Paul Simon wrote America. 1968, the year from hell, to be precise. It was one of many stellar tracks on one of Simon & Garfunkel’s best albums, Bookends.
We have two versions for your listening pleasure: the S&G original and a brilliant 1971 cover by Yes. It features some of Steve Howe’s finest finger picking and that’s saying a lot.
Now that we’ve counted the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, we’ll jump to the break and bypass Saginaw even though Michigan is nice at this time of year.
New Orleans has a problem with tons of plastic beads clogging up catch basins on the parade route. That inspired the Krewe of Spank’s Krewe du Vieux float this year:
That was, of course, before the bead monster known in these parts as the Beadgaroux hit the streets. This is our official, but not officious, 2019 logo:
Our most coveted throw was a set of nine trading cards “celebrating” clogged drains and bead monsters.
I wish I could take credit but the amuse-douche joke was the handiwork of my friend David Tower. Btw, he lives up to the name: he’s a tall dude.
Spank hit the big time this year. We’re featured in this video. I’m the guy in the green derby/bowler:
One of Spank’s closest sub-krewe friends is the Krewe of Mishigas. Their float was a work of twisted genius:
The RBG figure started off with a full rack, so I suggested that she needed boob reduction “surgery.” It turned out quite well.
Krewe du Vieux ate my week and the Krewe of Spank whuppped my ass. Today is the big day, which is why this week’s entry qualifies as a placeholder. If you want to re-read Confessions Of A Krewe du Vieux Member to get into the spirit of the occasion, there’s no time like the present.
This week’s theme song was written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen in 1973. It’s one of my favorite Steely Dan album tracks. It’s the touching tale of a man in love with a French Quarter prostitute named Louise. Ooh la la.
We have two versions for your listening pleasure: the steel guitar driven Steely Dan original followed by a swell 2013 cover by Boz Scaggs:
That’s it for this week. The closing bat meme is a picture taken by Dr. A near the Den of Muses.
I’m not big on Hallmark card holidays. My mother used to make fun of Mother’s Day and thought Valentine’s Day was silly. Her stock line about the former was: “It’s always mother’s day in this family.” Mom’s attitude about Hallmark card holidays prepared me for Valentine’s Day in New Orleans.
Valentine’s Day typically takes place during Carnival and I think you know what my priority is. The good news is that my awesome wife, Dr. A, agrees. In fact, Krewe du Vieux has marched on Valentine’s Day several times during its history.
We will spend today working on our costumes for the big day. And we will spend tonight with 53 of our closest friends as it’s Spank throws distribution night. Our theme is still top-secret. I wouldn’t even allow Slumlord Jared access. Unless, that is, he bribed me. I am easily corrupted. What else would you expect from a Greek guy who lives in the Gret Stet of Louisiana?
There’s an image going around social media that sums up New Orleans’ relationship with Valentine’s Day:
Holy St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Batman.
Finally a message for Dr. A. As Maybe Cousin Telly would surely say at this point:
Carnival 2019 is as long as Anthony Davis’ arms. Unlike AD it doesn’t want to be traded to the Lakers. I’m not sure what LeBron would make of this on his home court:
I picked the title because it’s catchy not because I confess to all that much. I must confess that it’s a relief not to write about a certain asshole president* who lied his way through the SOTU. I didn’t watch. Dr. A and I were babysitting our de facto nieces and nephew aka the Child Army. There was, however, snark and shade involved:
Read the Child Army a book inspired by @katyreckdahl’s reporting. I said “She’s a friend of mine.” Olivia said: “You have friends?”
That’s why her nickname is the Benevolent Dictator. In the immortal words of Rodney Dangerfield, I don’t get no respect. It’s an open question as to whether I deserve any.
The last word goes to Jay McShann and the Rolling Stones with this confessional classic:
It’s Carnival season. That means we’ll spending Saturdays working on this year’s Spank float for Krewe du Vieux 2019. That, in turn, means a special guest appearance by Dennie the Den of Muses cat:
I’m sure you’ve all heard about Scott Pruitt having an aide badger Chik-fil-A into giving his wife a franchise. Hey, they’ll need an income when Scotty stops grifting the EPA. It’s gotten so bad that Gret Stet Senator John Neely Kennedy publicly urged Scotty to “stop acting like a moron.” The national media has learned what the Louisiana press has known for years: Neely likes spouting off on teevee and usually has a corny one-liner saved up. If he weren’t a Republican, I might offer to supply him with some Neelyisms but he is so I won’t. Besides, I’m not adept at Hee Haw humor.
Back to Scott Pruitt. The reason I call him a chickenshit grifter is that he’s fond of grifting relatively small amounts aka chickenfeed or chickenshit. He’s even been asked to stop messing up the White House mess by eating there so much. Yo, Scotty: pay your tab, it’s only 400 bucks. In short, this is chickenshit grifting at its smallest and pettiest. Avarice thy name is Scotty.
I was astonished when this tweet landed on my timeline:
— Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) June 6, 2018
I checked to make sure this was an genuine Fox News feed. It is indeed and it’s actually “fair and balanced.” I didn’t know they were allowed to criticize Scotty. This could be a signal to the Insult Comedian that it’s time to stop watching Scotty grift. Grift, Scotty, grift.
One would think that, as a major criminal, Trump would be offended by the picayune and penny-ante antics of Scotty. They’re both grifters but Scotty is strictly small time. He’s hanging on because the president* likes his terrible policies but he can turn on a dime; just ask Trudeau or Macron. I wonder when Scotty will ask for a pardon. Let’s start the countdown…
Whenever I think of Chik-fil-A, I think of this masterful float by the Krewe du Vieux sub-kreme, Seeds of Decline, as well as this photo by my erstwhile nemesis, Michael Homan.
Photograph by Michael Homan.
Since I refuse to give Homan the last word, I might as well expel this disgusting earworm from my head.
One of these days I’ll write new lyrics and transform that horrendous tune into Watching Scotty Grift. There could even be an alternate version, Watching Scotty Blow.
The answer, my friend, is grifting in the wind, the answer is grifting in the wind.
The forecast was dire for last Saturday’s Krewe du Vieux parade. I am the Krewe of Spank’s voice of weather doom but I was wrong. It poured off and on until 3:30 PM, then the front moved on leaving us with slightly slippery streets and a dry parade.
Krewe of SPANK, which always mounts ambitious floats and even more ambitious themes, paid tribute to the pushme-pullyu over New Orleans’ status as a sanctuary city with the theme “SPANK-tuary City” and a float with an elaborate, moving whack-a-mole game.
Time to edit the editor. There’s no hyphen in Spanktuary, dude. It’s our pun and we’ll decide how to punctuate the sucker. Besides, we’ve used that moniker for our annual parade route party since its inception. Additionally, it’s Spank-a-Mole as you can see in these pictures taken by Dr. A:
Spank-a-Mole is a game of endurance wherein you beat the mole into submission. That’s what the anti-Trump resistance has to do: keep spanking the ugly orange mole. I understand the SOTU was an endurance test as well. I skipped it. 80 minutes of an Insult Comedian with a dead nutria atop his head? No thanks.
It’s time for some non-Spanky pictures involving members of Drips and Discharges. They mocked pervy NOLA celebrity chef John Besh. This headpiece won the parade:
My buddy Brother Bob Bolin is also in Drips. Here he is slumming it with me:
Here’s a close up of Bob’s sign:
A reminder: Krewe du Vieux is a homemade parade. All the work was done by the talented members of the various sub-krewes. That’s what makes it so distinctive and great. The satire is pretty darn good as well
A quick shout-out to my fellow Spankster and Deadhead David Martin for turning me on to the marvelous parade route photo by David Aguiar. Thanks, man. To read more about the parade take a closer look at Kevin’s instant analysis.
Finally, this year members of the Krewe of Spank costumed as Lady Liberty with blue togas. We looked like an inebriated gang as we marched. I’m not sure if we were the Jets or the Sharks. We *were* the first Blue Wave of 2018:
Tonight is the Krewe du Vieux parade. This last week has been fraught for a variety of reasons, especially the weather. Marching several miles in the driving rain has little appeal to me. I suspect that the overall theme of Bienville’s Wet Dream was tempting fate. That’s why I’m keeping this snappy.
We do have a theme song. Why Smack Dab In The Middle? I originally thought the Krewe of Spank would be in the middle of the parade. I was wrong. Woe is me, bop.
It’s still a great song. We have two versions for your listening pleasure: Joe Williams with the Count Basie Orchestra and Ry Cooder live with the Chicken Skin Band.
I have one article to share with you. Local writer and Tulane professor Richard Campanella is our king this year. Rich has written a piece for the Zombie Picayune that offers a virtual tour of the route. I hope he has some suitably regal rain gear so he can stay drier than Buster:
That’s it for this abbreviated edition of Saturday Odds & Sods. The last word goes to the two-legged Paul Drake and Della Street. Their four-legged compatriots will have to wait.
It’s been cloudy, damp, warm, and foggy in New Orleans this week. It’s the sort of weather that makes you want to grunt gutterally. I’m not quite sure what that means but I found myself saying ugh a lot of late.
The Krewe of Spank finally has a theme for the upcoming Krewe du Vieux parade. It’s going to be hard to get it done in time for January 26th. We’ll just have to have a Tim Gunn moment and:
My friends Cait and Dave had their annual Chrismukkah retro party last Saturday. It was a howling success and I paid the price the next day. There were tasty retro dishes, which all seemed to be stoner food, even the ones once shared at a Midwestern church supper. There was also a modest bonfire in the backyard. I sat by it for a while and wound up smelling like a campfire.
I'm relieved that nobody reenacted the camp fire scene in Blazing Saddles last night at the retro party.
There’s obviously no theme song this week, so I’ll post some holiday fare from The Smithereens and Cyndi Lauper.
I’m not in the mood to write about the news of the day, so all I got for you are some regular features. My little gray cells need respite from the blizzard of bad news.
Separated At Birth: In our continuing attempt to humanize Team Trump, I give you Beavis and Kellyanne Conway.
I should apologize to Beavis for comparing him to the genuinely awful Conway. Even if he’s a toon, he’s a much better person. Funnier too: the Great Cornholio was a stitch.
Conway threatened to sue over this image when it popped up last February. It seems to have never happened. Another day, another lie.
Speaking of classic Christmas movies; we weren’t? Let’s do it anyway.
Saturday GIF Horse: Dr. A and I watched Christmas In Connecticut on TCM last night. It’s time for a lazy self-quote of what I said about it in my Christmas movie post:
It’s a farce in Christmas film drag featuring Barbara Stanwyck trying to con her publisher Sydney Greenstreet. What’s not to love about a film that includes SZ Sakall in the cast? There’s apparently a remake of this 1942 classic, which I’ve never seen. I hate remakes, especially when the justification is that the original is in black and white.
Stanwyck’s character claims to be the ultimate homemaker but she cannot cook. In this week’s GIF horse, SZ (Cuddles) Sakall teaches her how to flip a flapjack.
She does not get the hang of it just as he cannot get the hang of how to say “hunky dory.” Instead he says “hunky dunky” in his cute Hungarian accent. Btw, Cuddles was a nickname the studio hung on the poor bastard. Apparently, all was not hunky dunky at Warner Brothers.
Are you ready to rock?
Saturday Classic: Brian Setzer has carved a niche for himself as a tattooed Christmas rocker. Nobody does it better or rocks it harder.
Dig That Crazy Christmas was released in 2005 and was Setzer’s second holiday opus.
That’s it for this week. I hope everyone has a happy holiday or muddles through. Remember: the key to a happy yuletide is spiked eggnog or your favorite adult beverage. I’ll give the last word on this Christmas Eve Eve to the cast of All About Eve. Who else?
Athenae offered up wholesome thanks to everyone who supported the First Draft fundraiser. I’m offering up weird thanks: a few pictures from Saturday’s massive Krewe du Vieux party/fundraiser, the Brew Doo or is that Dieux? Beats the hell outta me, y’all.
The Krewe of Spank has our own deeply twisted fundraising game: the Dirty Weiner Drop. Players climb a ladder and attempt to drop a dirty weiner on the target. In past years, Bobby Jindal and David Vitter have been among our targets. We like to keep it local, y’all. That’s why this year’s target was celebrity perv, Chef John Besh:
We have “crappy prizes” for the weiner winners. This year’s prizes were actually pretty good. But nobody wanted to take this Devil Doll donated by my little buddy Ryan:
Our den neighbors, the Krewe of Drips and Discharges, won the night with their Voodoo Trump Dick Doll. Dr. A bought one but I’m too lazy to photograph it so I stole this picture from my friend Brother Bob Bolin:
Btw, Brother Bob is no relation to former Giants pitcher, Bob Bolin; not that anyone but Doc or I give a shit about such things.
Thanks again for your support and for pitching in and making our fundraiser a success. The last word goes to (who else?) Sly & the Family Stone:
It’s been a weird week in New Orleans. I know, this is a weird place so why is that surprising? It’s not but I had a deeply strange encounter with a City Council candidate who I do not plan to vote for. Here’s how I described it at Zuckerville:
Having the temperament to work with the rest of the councilmembers is of the utmost importance – nothing passes the City Council without a minimum of four votes. Seth Bloom has habitually displayed a lack of self-restraint, professionalism, respect, and sincerity as he has campaigned for another public office. I am convinced that Seth Bloom is volatile, hostile, and vindictive – the residents of District B deserve better. The City of New Orleans deserves better.
BURN.
The good news is that his run-off opponent, Jay Banks, is qualified, famous for being nice, and was King Zulu in 2016. How you like dem coconuts, Bloomy?
Speaking of the 2017 New Orleans run-off election, my latest column on the increasingly bat shit crazy mayor’s race is up at the Bayou Brief: An Uncanny Mess.
I’ve been feeling a bit anti-social of late. That’s one reason I selected Don’t Get Around Much Anymore as this week’s theme song, but mostly because it’s a fucking great song. It was written in 1940 as an instrumental by Duke Ellington. The original title was Never No Lament:
Bob Russell’s lyrics were added two years later. I’m glad they changed the title: Never No Lament doesn’t sound like a hit to me.
We have three versions for your listening pleasure. First, the Ink Spots’ mega-hit version. Second, the Duke and Louis Armstrong from what many call their genius sessions. Immodest but true. Finally, my favorite version. It was arranged by Billy May for the great Nat King Cole.
There’s nothing quite as good as jazz Nat even though lush string pop Nate is pretty swell as well. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s jump to the break.
First, thank you for making our Houston Food Bank fundraiser such a rousing success. We raised more than $3,100. Our readers and friends are the best even if Della Street is trying to hog the credit. Let’s say thanks with a cat meme:
It’s been a difficult week. I don’t have the all-out Saturday Odds & Sods spirit so I’m going to do something a bit different. I feel like a pitcher who gave it his all in his last start but has no stuff in his next outing. In short, I have that ennui that the late Ashley Morris warned us about:
One reason for my ennui is Hurricane Harvey. Everyone who lives in New Orleans long enough has ties to Houston. Plus, the people of Houston helped us in innumerable ways after and during Katrina and the federal flood as my friend Clancy DuBos pointed out in the Gambit Tabloid. It’s dispiriting to see people evacuated from their homes by helicopter and boat. It makes me queasy and gives me a sinking feeling. Pun intended; it always is. I’m not sure if one should call it PTSD or survivor’s guilt but I got it bad and that ain’t good.
The other thing on my mind is Oscar’s health. There has been a recent influx of street cats in our neighborhood, which has resulted in Oscar marking his territory inside the house. Marking is, of course, a polite term for peeing. The good news is that he only marks in one place and on towels we’ve provided. We took him to the vet last week and none of our worst case scenarios materialized. It’s all in his pretty big-eyed head. So, our vet gave him what we like to call kitty Prozac.
The jury is still out as to whether the kitty Prozac will work because Della freaked out for the first five days after Oscar returned home from 2 hours at the vet; something that had never happened with our past cats. Catblogging fans know that Oscar and Della are besties. In fact, our running joke is that she’s Oscar’s cat. The good news is that she’s back to normal. The bad news is that we’re starting from square one with Oscar and his meds. Hopefully, we can teach this old cat some new tricks. It would be nice not to feel like a combination geriatric cat nurse and laundryman. In short, I am worn the fuck out by the situation. Thanks for listening, y’all.
This week’s theme song is a no-brainer, a good thing since my little gray cells are frazzled. Stormy Weather was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1933. Here are versions by two of my favorite divas.
This week’s edition eschews links to long form articles and if you think I’m eschewing up, what can I tell you? It’s going to be a bit more like a First Draft Potpourri post only without the smelly stuff. Btw, potpourri is one of those words I cannot spell without thinking about it. I guess that makes me a piss pourri poor excuse for a writer…
Holy Freudian Slip, Batman: A certain president* neglected to use his spell checker whilst tweeting. I reckoned he might delete it so I took a screen shot:
Trump *is* a heel who thinks that healing Texas will be fast and easy. It will not and cannot be. Recovery is a long slog. In fact, help will be needed in Southeast Texas long after the teevee cameras are gone and Trump is removed from office. Believe me.
I suspect the relief agencies will be singing this song as they wait and wait and wait for Trump’s check:
Silly Bare Naked Canadians.
Tweets Of The Week: They both come from First Drafters or is that Draftees? I’m not quite sure which.
I took this photo back in NOLA post-K. It's universal. Treat people how you'd want to be treated- it's what's right and could be you someday pic.twitter.com/lFRileMPYb
Scout appears to have streamlined her twitter account so the picture is gone with the wind. It’s a photo of a woman holding a sign saying Our Fate Is Your Fate, which became the title of the First Draft anthology.
The next tweet comes from lil’ ole me on a windy day in New Orleans:
It's windy enough Uptown to blow off the dead nutria atop Trump's head.
Let’s play some music before shutting things down.
Saturday Classic:The Band by The Band sounds like it should be a debut album. It’s their second record. Hardcore fans call it The Brown Album. Boring title notwithstanding, it’s a great album.
I hope everyone has a labor free Labor Day weekend. Even though I hate the heat, I will be marching (sweating is more like it) with the Krewe of Spank in the Southern Decadence parade tomorrow. There may even be some biblebangers protesting since it’s a gay thing. They’ll leave me alone, I’ll be wielding my Spank paddle. In fact, we’ll have a bunch of them. Thwack.
That’s it for this week. I’ll give Oscar the last word with a re-meming of the fundraiser picture. I hope the dear boy is feeling better soon.
As I said in the last Saturday post,I’m burnt out on Lost Cause Fest. I’m ready to move on but as Michael Corleone said in Godfather III: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” In Michael’s case it was La Cosa Nostra, in my case it’s the Lost Causers. And that is why Mississippi State Representative Karl Oliver is malaka of the week.
Malaka Oliver fits into the category of “honorees” I’ve never heard of before and hope to never hear from again. His sole current claim to fame is a Facebook post that surfaced via Mississippi Today:
I’m glad that so many posted screen shots of this unhinged rant because it may disappear much like the Lost Cause itself; other Mississippi GOPers have condemned the remarks because he used the L word: LYNCHED. It’s a word that should never be used but seems to be making a comeback in the age of pro-Trump alt-right shitbirds.
Lost Causers like Malaka Oliver aren’t big on facts. It was not the “leadership of Louisiana” that removed (not destroyed) the white supremacy monuments, it was the City of New Orleans. I remember when conservatives favored local self-government but that seems be a cause as lost as the Civil War and Jim Crow. As Mayor Mitch Landrieu put it while the Lee statue was coming down:
“The Civil War is over; the Confederacy lost and we are better for it.”
That would appear to be evident but apparently denial is a river that runs through Karl Oliver’s district. It’s a Lost Cause because y’all lost the war. Unfortunately, they won the peace both on the ground and in the history books. That’s life in what Gore Vidal (who had deep Southern roots) called “The United States of Amnesia.”
This is an issue of local self-government. If other municipalities choose not to remove their monuments, ain’t nobody’s business but their own. I don’t believe in telling other people what to think or believe. It’s up to them. Malaka Oliver would be wise to mind his beeswax and butt out. And that is why Lost Causer Karl Oliver is malaka of the week.
I have some Lost Cause Fest lagniappe. First, a letter to the editor published by the Advocate, which is, in a word, unhinged. It’s amusing to see my yuppie, gentrifying Mayor referred to as having “a program of Social Marxism.”
Finally, my own Krewe of Spank posted this reminder of 2016’s Arthur Hard-On Mardi Gras Guide on the book of faces. The post wouldn’t embed, but here’s the picture:
